30 March 2019 The day comes in partly cloudy with modest seas and light tradewinds on the starboard quarter. The Picton Castle sailed from St Helena yesterday noon after a bit of last minute food shopping and clearing out. The ship is bound for the Windward Islands of the Eastern Caribbean, with Grenada as our …
We are sailing along beautifully here in the Picton Castle crossing the South Atlantic Ocean. Ten days out of Luderitz, Namibia we are on a sailing ship passage as fine as one could hope for. With steady trade winds blowing over the quarter, we steer, trim sail, and keep lookout, watch after watch. Studding sails …
Three days out of Luderitz the barque Picton Castle is sailing along with all sail set in a modest Force 3 breeze on the port quarter. We are a few miles south of the Tropic of Capricorn in the South Atlantic bound northwest from Namibia towards St Helena some 1,000 miles over the horizon ahead. …
Sailing to Europe, Africa, and the Spanish Main As the Barque Picton Castle sails on the last leg of this current voyage around the world, it behooves us to think of the future. What comes next. After rounding the Cape of Good Hope (aka “Cape Of Storms”) and settling into a nice long stay in Cape Town …
Tavern Of The Seas…. For centuries this cape and this city, once a small town but always a seaport, has been host and refuge for European and North America sailing ships bound to and from the Far East and their home ports. Today it is much the same but most of the ships now coming …
Here we are about 60 nautical miles off the coast of South Africa near Durban. Picton Castle is under shortened sail and it’s blowing hard. Sheets are some taut. Not quite a gale but 30 knots and more sustained wind than we have seen in our flying fish sailing over the last nine months since …
After a very pleasant stay in La Reunion, a French Island east of Madagascar in this South Indian Ocean, the Picton Castle and her adventurous crew are back at sea. After days and days of sunny dry weather, we had a few days of rain and squalls while in port, these being the trailings of …
The Picton Castle is alongside in the fine protected basin, part of the harbour of the commercial port near St Denis, Reunion Island in the western south Indian Ocean. We had a fine five day passage from Rodrigues. The entrance to the basin is a tight hairpin turn and then a channel about 60 feet …
December 27, 2018 – Indian Ocean – noon position approximately 16-14 South / 083-58 – on passage from Bali towards Rodrigues and Reunion Islands The Picton Castle gang is having a pretty classic studding sail sea passage across this broad southern Indian Ocean. ESE winds blow easy enough drawing us along at 4-5 knots, sometimes …
At 11 degrees 28 minutes south latitude and 103 degrees 40 minutes west longitude, Picton Castle and crew have sailed about 1,000 miles into the Indian Ocean from beautiful Bali. And halfway around the world. We had a small 200-mile diversion to Christmas Island to get one of our worthy shipmates ashore to get eyes …
